


The Lovers at the Beginning of the World

by song_of_orpheus



Series: Orpheus does Les Mis Ladies' Week 2018 [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Cosette is the Moon, Eponine is the Ocean, F/F, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_orpheus/pseuds/song_of_orpheus
Summary: Day Four of Les Mis Ladies' WeekPrompt: OppositesLong ago in the dust-ages, feathered silhouettes became beings became existence. Two existences - the Ocean and the Moon - converged, and love was born on that bare Earth.Perhaps not a true fairytale, but a dream nonetheless, stranger.





	The Lovers at the Beginning of the World

Long ago, in the dust-ages and way before our time became mortal, all things had names. These names were precious, and could be cut from the stars or drawn out from the heavy lungs of the earth. However they were made, they rang out through the universe, bringing all the magic that is now hidden.

 

The Ocean was named Eponine. She was fearsome and steady, though ever-running. She’d take human form at the high tides of the afternoon to trace her toes over the sands, ready to cut the earth in two but never wishing to. When she laughed – as she did not unoften – the young humanity would shudder and weep and sing her praise.

 

Once, when time was left to rest upon a spindle at dusk, Eponine was striding along the sea strand, howling. Her teeth almost tore themselves apart upon the Wind, and the Wind howled back. He was nameless and bitter and cruel, but she kept him in line, guided ships through his nets. Yes, she guided ships to shelter and her creatures to mercy, and raised storms to chill the greed of men.

 

The life of her heart was an indigo thing that evening.

 

She was not always kind, or always fair. She was a wild person, bearing all the strength and scars of that mantle.

 

Until that evening, she’d spent the days by her coats, spitting out hard reflections in gold and silver, before collapsing to the depths at night. Yet some difference written in the sunset that evening stayed her.

 

It was not a beautiful thing. Beauty was of no consequence to the Ocean; she desired animation and liveliness, anger and softness. That evening, she found it. She found it in the dark-eyed stars and grey slate of sky gently chalking itself out.

 

Time cracked itself apart again and again. Eponine stood silent and still. The sky curdled into pink and violet and warm blackness. The Earth itself fell into a heady slumber.

 

And then, from behind the darkest and wildest and most beautiful of clouds, a figure appeared. She was a haze of silver in the vast black sky, with pale skin and round figure and dark hair the colour of the mountains silhouetted.

 

Before Eponine could speak, the woman had stepped out from the splintered cloth of night and glided through the briny air to meet her on the strand.

 

“Good evening,” the woman said, with a voice like the mist upon the stars. “Stranger, who are you?”

 

Eponine did not say her name, not then. To give someone your name was to give them the power to destroy you, and she was wiser than to risk that.

 

“I? I am the fatal seas and rageful earthquakes and healing honey tides.” She traced her tongue over her sharp teeth and her eyes sparked to meet the stranger’s. “I am the Ocean, my love.”

 

The woman laughed, a loud sound that crashed through the air carelessly, and Eponine though she could fall in love with it. “I am the lonely crescent, then. I am the guiding silver and the haunted eclipse. I am the Moon.”

 

When Eponine asked to hold her hand, she consented. They spoke of every crack in their ancient and powerful hearts, of the guilding of mortals and ruin of kings, they danced and spat dandelion wine back into the storms with an old sinner’s gospel.

 

Such primordial beings have no need for Gods, of course – they are what Gods are made of, but they could still find need of love and forgiveness. That, they found in each other.

 

Eventually, in the silent dawn, they pressed their lips together and bloomed their love into being as simple and warm as sunlight. It was a moment laid bare. Then the Moon was forced to retreat to her lonely home, and wait for the sun to fall again.

 

They met like that for a sweet eternity, at night-time always. Unseen by mortals, they found joy in each other, such that they forgot their rage. The tides barely stirred except when the Moon was there, and the Moon faltered until she seemed no more than a sliver in the sky.

 

It didn’t matter to them. They were in love.

 

But nights of love were not enough. Soon, lying together in the dark seabed, Eponine traced a hand across her darling’s thigh, and said: “Marry me?”

 

Cosette could think no other answer but _Yes._

 

They made their vows the following midnight, vows branded fire-bright upon the chill air. The sweetness that followed was heavy and soft, and Eponine’s mouth upon her wife’s was gentle and delicious as night-rain.

 

They exchanged names, rejoicing in the dark. _Cosette_ was the Moon, and she seemed enough to melt away, with none of Eponine’s fierceness or stability. They complemented each other that way.

 

But the Wind heard, and he was angry.

 

Love soon made the Moon too determined and the Ocean too gentle for his liking. Married, they would not leave each other. Mortals shivered at the sight of the Moon hanging low and constant in the sky.

 

When Cosette refused to return home to the sky, the Wind spat hailstorms upon the Ocean, raw and bruising. Eponine laughed though, and kissed her wife and told her all was fine. The day turned to night and they held fast to one another.

 

So the Wind spat fire upon the Ocean, hot and violent. Eponine smiled tightly and pulled her wife closer. The day turned to night and they shivered in their bed.

 

So the Wind spat brimstone upon the Ocean, bloody and consuming. Eponine turned still and silent, and turned away from her wife, her love, her life. The day turned to night and they let each other go.

 

The Wind stilled, contented. Eponine would reach for her lost lover, but as soon as her hand sank into the shadows of the sky, a tempest would strike back at her, parting them over and over. The memory of love became silent in her mind.

 

Mortals wept at the lonely Moon, smudged as she was in the sky by her own tears. The Ocean bore no ships and no life. Even the Wind, hard-hearted as he was and unknowing of gentleness, realised that what had become of the Earth was destined to decay.

 

And love must find a way, after all.

 

Cosette was changeable, of course – she bent and melted herself each month into different bodies, all the same person. Filling herself up on the incense of the mortals cowered by her, she stormed to the Wind and clenched his hands around the sun. It smouldered against his palms but held fast, and she told him to use it to do all he had wished of the two lovers himself.

 

Then Cosette, that lonely Moon now so determined to be un-lonely, left the sky. The sun gleamed awake for days on end as she journeyed into the aching depths of the seas for her love.

 

Needless to say, she found her.

 

Balance was still required. Two women of such opposition in nature and temperament need their time of freedom, so you may know that Cosette fractures the sky with her brightness on many a night, only to return to her wife in the depths for the day. Eponine laughs, as always, during the day, and carries her lover’s portrait at night.

 

They have each other, and whilst much of the magic that gave them names is now hidden behind those aching stars, they are still happy and as in love as anything.

 

Remember them when you see the Moon, Cosette, and when you see her molten silver on the Ocean at night. Think of their embrace before any of our world saw the dawn, and have hope. Names may not have such a power any more, but _you_ certainly do.


End file.
